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Articles authored by Servaes, Jan

Articles

Sustainability testing for development projects

The term sustainability has grown increasingly popular as development experts seek to measure the long-term impacts of their projects. Although there is no commonly agreed definition of sustainability, the word has become a common catchphrase. It is often used to describe the desired goal of lasting change within institutions, communities, and projects. We provide a tool to aid in the evaluation of the sustainability of development projects. We have applied our indicators to two specific projects to demonstrate their utility.

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Advocacy communication for peacebuilding

Advocacy communication is now a key action term in development discourse. Advocates are usually issue- or programme-oriented and do not often think in terms of an ongoing process of social change in general, or peacebuilding in particular. The resolution of an issue or the initiation of a programme are ends in themselves. Thus, the primary aim of advocacy is to foster public policies that are supportive to the solution of an issue or programme. Since public policies must be viewed as an integral part of development processes, the kind of advocacy we advocate is participatory.